TV RECAP: Outlander, Episodes 3 & 4

If you have not watched the most recent episodes of Outlander, turn back now. Spoilers lie ahead. You have been warned.

Photo Credit: Starz

****SPOILER ALERT****

Well, life got busy with Thanksgiving and before I knew it another episode of Outlander aired before I wrote up the recap for the previous episode. However, here is a quick recap of what happened. The whole episode jumped from Jamie and Claire to Roger and Bree. Which means we are finally back to seeing what Roger and Bree have been up too. Roger flies to Boston then drives to North Carolina with Bree to attend a Scottish Fest that he has been asked to sing at. Jamie breaks the news to Aunt Jocasta that they are not going to inherit River Run. Claire gets bucked off her horse in a storm and finds a skull. She takes it with her, while she is washing it off she sees that she has silver fillings and realizes that he was a time traveler like her. Roger proposes to Bree and she turns him down and he is crushed. Jamie and Claire finally find their new home calling it Fraser’s Ridge. Now onto this weeks episode.

As the episode opens Jamie is signing for his 10,000 acres with the Govorner. Fergus and Marsali wave goodbye to them from town. Marsali at this time is heavily pregnant with their first child. The small group is heading back to claim their property. As they are marking their property lines with poles tied with red cloth, Rolo starts to bark. Claire can’t see what he is barking at but Jamie can. It is a group of Natives. They don’t look friendly. They are holding bow and arrows and hatchets. This is our first full encounter with them. If you have read the books you know this is the first of many encounters that they will have. Jamie walks towards them and throws his knife into the ground and holds his hand up. The Native’s turn and ride away. For the first time this episode we jumped to the present with Roger standing in his office staring out the window lost in thought. He can’t stop thinking about Bree. He opens his desk drawer and pulls out the book about Scottish Settlers in North Carolina that Bree gave him. He begins to read it, as he is narrating we jump to Jamie, Claire, and Ian gathering rocks and felling trees to build their shelter. As he reads he sees the words Fraser’s Ridge and you can see the wheels begin to turn. Jamie is laying out the lines of their new cabin with poles and rope. Claire gets the walkthrough of all the buildings and the layout of the cabin. Roger is opening the envelope from the USA. He hopes it contains the papers that he is hoping for. It does! He has found Claire and Jamie. He is excited and promptly calls Bree to tell her the good news. As they are talking you can tell that they miss each other.

As Jamie and Claire are at the campsite building, Ian comes racing up with the Natives hot on his heels. They throw their property stakes into the ground at their feet and ride away. Later that night as they are going to bed Jamie refuses to be scared away by their actions. As the fire burns low and everyone’s asleep we hear Rolo barking in the distance, his barking wakes them up. They go out into their campsite and see the campsite is trashed and all of their meat is gone from where they left it in the tree. They hear rustling in the bushes, they are scared they don’t know what it is until out of the bushes comes their horse with massive claw marks on his side. At this point, Claire realizes that it is a bear. The next day Jamie goes to Myers for council about what to do with the bear and what to do about the Natives. As night falls we see the Natives walking through the woods carrying torches for light. The camp is sleeping but Rolo wakes up and whines at the door. They open the door for him and he runs into the woods. They hear moaning and see a form laying on the ground just a short distance from their camp. They rush to it and see that it is Myers. He has a massive maul mark on his chest and is bleeding. They realize the bear did it and Claire goes to work saving him. Jamie heads off into the wood tracking the bear. He is attacked by the bear. It is at this point when Claire sees the bite mark on Myers he wasn’t attacked by an actual bear. Jamie realizes that it is not a bear but a Native dressed in a bears hide and has his claws on his hands as weapons. Jamie ends up killing him in self-defense, He builds a travois and drags the man back to the Natives village. Jamie finds out that he had been banished and that they are glad that he killed the man as he had been causing a lot of problems. At the same time, Jamie is shocked to discover that they speak English. They reach an agreement and give Jamie the name “bear killer” The women Natives when they visit Claire and Jamie the next day tell her about a dream the healer from their village has had about her. Back in the present Fiona gives Roger an obituary that seems to be for Jamie and Claire it’s dated 177 something the last number is smudged. He can’t bring himself to tell Bree about this discovery. In the past, we see Jamie, Ian, and Claire building the cabin in peace. As the episode ends, Roger decides to tell Bree. He calls her but gets her roommate who informs Roger that Bree had left for Scotland several weeks ago stating that she was going to go and visit her mother.

Oh
man, these two episodes gave me all the feels. The intensity of the
bear hunt was almost too much for me. I am still on the fence about
them switching it from an actual bear attack to a man in a bear fur. I
mean I understand why they did it but still. The other thing that really
bothered me was the proposal. I loved the one in the book, a pint and
fish and chips at the pub then a slightly romantic proposal in the
gathering fog in Scotland. The one in the show was anti-climatic and
not really romantic at all. What did you guys think?

About Elizabeth Cole

Stay-at-home mom to two children and one toddler. I love to read, travel (haven't done it in a while), and cook. Born and raised in Three Rivers, Michigan and currently, reside in Northern Michigan. Can't wait to start sharing my book thoughts/ reviews with you!!